


Healing Touch

by bookjunkiecat



Series: Glimpses of the Heart [9]
Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Illnesses, M/M, Masturbation, Nursing, Soft Smut Sunday, Victorian Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-02 22:52:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14555298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookjunkiecat/pseuds/bookjunkiecat
Summary: Watson lies ill, and everyone knows doctors make the worst patients. Luckily he has his devoted friend, Holmes, to care for him.





	Healing Touch

**Author's Note:**

> For #soft smut sunday
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @savvyblunders

I can hear them fussing about me. Mrs Hudson, redoubtable woman that she is, wants to nurse me. Holmes has taken the rather remarkable stance that he can care for my needs ably. 

Don't be foolish, dear fellow, I want to tell him, ‘course you can manage nearly everything, but you're not a nurse. 

But he is more tender of me since his return, and my throat hurts and my head aches awfully, so I close my eyes and drift off to sleep, leaving them to scrap it out. I've a hearty constitution; a bit of rest and I'm sure I'll be fit as Holmes’s fiddle by morning. 

Only I'm not. In fact, I rather lose track of the days, immured as I am in my dim, stuffy room. Mrs Hudson makes periodic visits, clucking and fussing with practiced ease as she straightens my hot, rumpled bedding, and recommends wiping my fevered brow with a cloth wrung through with rosewater. She brings me weak tea and cool barley water and warm beef broth. 

She's not allowed to bathe my brow or feed me, however, unless Holmes is dropping. Whereupon she will flutter her pinny at him as if he is naught but a bothersome chicken, and take over my care as he is instructed to seek his own bed, or have a bite of chicken or at least submit to a half hours walk in the fresh air. 

As I drift in and out, sometimes he will be there, at my bedside, reading or napping or watching me with grave worry. And sometimes he will be gone from his chair and our doughty landlady will be in his place, spooning liquids into my mouth or praying silently, or occasionally talking. I'm bewildered, until I realize I have apparently been carrying on a conversation with her. It leaves me vaguely concerned as to what I may have said in my altered state. 

But I am too hot and tired and fractious to care overly, and I drift off before can worry too much. 

The next time I wake, Holmes is at my side once more, reading one of my medical tomes, his fingers busy with the densely printed pages, eyes bright as he absorbs knowledge. “Looking for a cure?” I rasp, grimacing at my irritated throat, my dry mouth. As he drops the book, I try to shift onto my side and reach for the glass of water under its sanitary net covering, but my stiff, aching muscles refuse to respond easily to my wishes. It's not just a cold then, I've had a ‘flu. 

“Doctor Richards has been ‘round,” replies he, divining my thoughts as always and reaching for the glass. He holds it to my lips, cautioning me to swallow slowly, and props my heavy head up with his fine, thin hand which is nevertheless capable of much care and gentleness. My throat is irritated and my nose stuffy, but I judge I am over the worst of it and grope for the handkerchief I vaguely recall having in my hand the last time I was awake. 

Again, Holmes anticipates me, and presses a clean, starched linen in my hand and looks away politely as I blow my nose. I lie back, weak and shaky and annoyed at the feebleness of my form. I have not been so helpless and contemptible since I woke in the hospital following my wound. 

As I suspected, Holmes confirms that my colleague had counseled rest and fluids for me, confident in pledging me over the worst of it. I politely listen to my friend, and then plainly tell him I wish to rise from bed and quit the room. 

His answer is surprisingly firm and practical. To my astonishment, he refuses to allow me to so much as sit up, but promises that if I swallow down all of the tea Mrs Hudson is even now bringing up the stairs, and manage half of the custard, that he will help me into the armchair and allow me to sit there whilst she changes the bedding. I am frankly astonished at his bossy manner and the level of no-nonsense assurance with which I have not been treated since I was a lad in skirts.

Still, it is good to be cared for. 

Tea and a goodly portion of the custard disposed of, it is with hidden gratitude that I allow him to assist me back into the bed. I am exhausted, and want only to nap. Although, before I once again sleep, I extract a promise to be permitted to bathe upon the following day. Holmes adds the proviso that Doctor Richards give me a clean bill of health first. I chafe at being treated as an ignorant patient, but the idea of having my greasy hair washed and being clean once more is tantalizing. 

Accordingly, the next afternoon, I shakily sit up and with a warm face let Holmes draw my sweat-soaked nightshirt from me and then I lie once more, this time under a sheet to preserve both my modesty as well as my temperature. I fully expected Mrs Hudson to arrive to complete my ablutions. To my consternation, Holmes instead rolls up his sleeves, tucks a rolled towel under my neck and puts bowl under my now elevated head. 

His motions are not practiced, but he is able enough, although occasionally overzealous with both the lathering and the rinsing. Once my hair squeaks with cleanliness, my friend dries it with the towel, and then proceeds to fold back a portion of the sheet, preparatory to bathing me. 

I had been quiescent until now, but I felt it necessary to lodge a complaint. My manly indignation was comprehensively ignored, and my old friend merely sighed and told me not to be tedious. For, “it would hardly do for Mrs Hudson to bathe you, Watson.”

Fixing my eyes on the ceiling, I thought--a trifle grimly--of long marches with blistered feet, of the smell of the Thames at low tide, of the tedium of Sunday dinner at King’s College when I was an underclassman. Anything to distract my weak mind from the long sweep of the flannel on my limbs, from the clean, wholesome smell of the soap mixed with his hair oil and the wool and silk of his dressing gown. 

I was unable to look at him, and I hoped he thought nothing of it. Perhaps I was foolish to think to keep it from the most observant man in the world, but I had kept so many secrets from him these many years. What was one more? 

He would not wish to linger, and with luck this would all be over in a few minutes. I could surely last that long. Even given the gentleness of his touch and the pleasant warmth of the water and the delicious sensation of being so tenderly cared for, I could refrain from any unsavoury reactions. 

Only, it appeared not. 

“Oh.” The astonishment in his voice--as if he could not belief the evidence of his own eyes. 

And yet it was unmistakable. The sheet was pulled back and the weighty presence of my thickening prick lay damningly along my thigh. Hot colour swept my stubbled face (I remained as yet unshaven) and I caught my breath. It was all over! 

Prepared to bluster, I opened my mouth, but before I could speak Holmes drew in a shaky breath and looked at me with enormous eyes. “John,” he whispered, his usually cool voice warm and throbbing with emotion. He said my name again, eyes locked on mine, and I was lost. 

“Holmes--Sherlock…” I licked my suddenly dry lips, feeling shy in the face of my long-revealed secret. “I--I apologize--my mastery of my body is debilitated in the wake of my--”

But I was not given time to finish my pathetic sputterings, “My dear boy,” said he in a low, throbbing tone. “My very dear John… you, you spoke of your f-feelings for me in the midst of your fever dreams but I hardly dared to hope--that is, I dare not dream you really--” he broke off, eyes brilliant, face rapt, “John.”

My intimate name on his lips broke the spell, and I shuddered, dropping back from my elbows, where I had propped myself. “Hope, Sherlock? Dream? I've done nothing else for fifteen years.”

“May I…touch you?” asked he, almost shyly.

“Please,” I breathed, and then caught my breath as his fine, slim hand fluttered down and laid on my sternum. We both regarded it solemnly, and then as our eyes met, I licked my lips once again. His eyes flared, heat leaping in their depths, and I was gone, “Touch me, my darling.”

“Oh John!”

Our lips crashed together and we kissed hotly, breaths panting hot and eager, tongues twining first shyly and then sinuously. As his hand stroked my chest and brushed over my nipples, I buried one hand in his hair and slipped the other inside the warmth of his dressing gown. His body felt warm and thrilling and electric under my touch. I wanted, as never before, to see and feel his unclothed form.

As his clever fingers wrought chilling fire from my nipples, I arched into his touch and he gasped into my mouth. “Touch me,” I whispered, pressing our foreheads together and meeting his eyes. “and please, let me touch you as well.”

It was the work of a moment to loosen his sash and shrug him out of the emerald green silk and velveteen. After a slight pause he stood long enough to draw off his thin muslin nightshirt, and then he was thrillingly nude at last. My eyes drank him in, and my hands reached for him as I spoke his name in a low voice. Sitting up on one elbow, I grasped his flat hip and pulled him to me, my mouth brushing the scarlet head of his long prick. 

He muffled his desperate cry in his hand and stood trembling as I swallowed him down. “Oh please--John,” he murmured in an unsteady tone, “I shall not last--”

“Let me taste you,” I hummed, and he reached out hungry hands for my drying hair and held me tightly as he thrust shallowly into my mouth. In but one or two more moves he lost his composure and I drank in the sight of my beloved friend unraveling, along with the salty, bittersweet essence of him. 

As I laid back on the bed, cursing my unsteady muscles and weakened stamina, Sherlock dropped to his knees and clung to me, kissing me with a hunger and desperate need that thrilled me to my marrow. Darling, he called me in between kisses. Angel boy and sweetheart and mine. 

I held him close and returned his kisses, and nearly forgot my mounting need in the face of his desire for my mouth. But soon enough he recalled himself and then one of his beautiful hands was smoothing down my belly and lower still to engulf my length in his firm grasp. I groaned, hips rising to his touch, and revelled in the taste of myself on his sweet tongue. It was like a marvelous dream, to be here with him like this, so intimately entwined.

His touch was warm and assured, not skilled, but perfect all the same. As he stroked my tongue with his own, I gasped with rising excitement. Sherlock's touch was incredible, like a match to dry tinder, it did not take long before I was aflame. I choked out a warning, before shuddering my way through a short, intense release, spilling in his hand. He stroked me through the soft ecstasy until I objected wordlessly and stilled his hand with my own. For a long while we hung together, til I bethought myself and tugged at him until he climbed into the bed with me. 

I stroked his back and laid my head over the reassuring thrum of his heartbeat and we laid together for some half an hour. I then suddenly recalled that our landlady could appear at any time and it would hardly do to be found thus. With reluctance I spoke, “Would that there were time enough, my dearest, I would hold you like this all the day until the sun went down before I thought to stir. But our good Mrs Hudson will be likely to disturb us soon with some wholesome tisane.”

His tone was lazy and teasing--a condition I was familiar with, though never in circumstances such as these!--and he didn't so much as move a toe. “She attends church even as we speak, and then intends on dining with Mrs Turner.” He did move then, turning his head to smirk happily at me. “We shan't be disturbed for at least four more hours, my dear fellow.”

“Call me your darling boy, again,” I entreated, nibbling at his lips. He may well have complied, but as I was so deliciously occupied with his mouth, it might have escaped my notice.

No matter…we have years in which to please one another.


End file.
